Review: THE THING EXPANDED Is The Final Word On John Carpenter’s Classic Sci-Fi Horror
I was probably far too young when I was introduced to John Carpenter’s The Thing. My dad let me watch it when I was around 10 years old (maybe a year or two on either side) – a huge Kurt Russell fan thanks to Big Trouble In Little China (which I was also too young to watch), he let me see the sci-fi remake on TV or maybe video sometime in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. It made an impression, I’ll say that.
Carpenter is a self confessed fan of Howard Hawks and his 1982 remake of Hawks’ The Thing From Another World is a fantastic homage to the filmmaker without ever feeling like a shot-for-shot remake – it’s more of a faithful adaptation of the source material, Who Goes There (written by John W. Campbell under the pen name Don A. Stuart). Carpenter’s film is a claustrophobic tale of terror, set in the desolate wastelands of the Arctic. When a research team uncover a buried spaceship in the ice, they discover that the alien has shape shifting capabilities and soon no-one can be trusted.
When The Thing was released in the summer of 1982 it faced a wave of negative reviews and was met with total audience apathy, grossing under $20 million off a $15 million budget. The fact it opened just a couple of weeks after Universal Pictures other alien release, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, probably had something to do with it. That warm and friendly family sci-fi tale went on to become the highest grossing film of all time, while Carpenter’s film was quickly forgotten, only to quietly grow in stature across the ‘80s during the VHS boom.
I’ll admit that I thought that I didn’t need to know anything else about The Thing. I’d watched the film countless times and I own the exemplary DVD release with a detailed documentary and an awesome commentary track between Carpenter and Russell. I thought a new documentary was superfluous. I was wrong. Very wrong.
Ian Nathan’s The Thing Expanded is the final word on Carpenter’s film. Detailed to the extreme, this 5 hour documentary covers every aspect of the film – from its inception, through to the the film’s growing legacy, as well as the 2011 prequel film and aborted 2005 Sci-Fi Channel sequel. It gets granular about the film, offering up all you would want to know (except the creature’s ultimate fate). It not only features Carpenter and Russell as talking heads, but also serving co-stars Keith David (Childs), Thomas G. Waites (Windows), David Clennon (Palmer) and Richard Masur (Clark).
The doc also includes interviews with behind the scenes talent like Director of Photography Dean Cundey. Co-producer Stuart Cohen, Editor Todd C. Ramsay and Producer Larry Franco – so if there’s a tantalising story to be told, you get to hear it from at least two or three sources. Throw in commentary from industry fans like Mick Garris, Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Torro and Issa López (whose True Detective: Night Country was heavily inspired by Carpenter’s film) and you have the perfect combination of talking heads to take you through the making of one of the great cult films of the last half century. If there’s a missing voice, it’s that of elusive make-up effects maestro, Rob Bottin – who is frequently talked about and seen in archive photographs but never interviewed. It’s understandable, as Bottin has retired from filmmaking and not be seen or interviewed for decades.
Broken up into handy chapters so you don’t have to watch in one go (but I bet you will), The Thing Expanded is an incredibly comprehensive look at a film that was reviled on its initial release in 1982, but now appreciated for the greatness it has always had. The Thing has many fans out there and all of them will want to get their hands on The Thing Expanded.
